"I just find it always funny because everybody's a
local band somewhere.I mean, Bruce is a
local band in Asbury Park, and the Beatles are a
local Liverpool band and, you know, all that
sort of thing.So I have no problem with
that as far as we're from here."

-- Michael Stanley

Preface

Clevelander Michael Stanley's self-titled first solo album
was released in 1972 and was produced by Bill Szymczyk and featured backing by
Joe Walsh, Todd Rundgren, and Rick Derringer.It was followed a year later by a second solo album before Stanley put
together the first proper incarnation of the Michael Stanley Band and released You Break It, You Bought It in
1975.Ten more albums on five different
labels followed over the next eight years. The high water marks were 1977's StagePass -- Epic Records' answer to Live Bullet and Frampton Comes Alive,the
Clarence Clemons-backed Heartland in
1980, and 1983's You Can't Fight Fashion,
which includes the song "My Town" -- rumored to have been rerecorded
in nearly 100 city-specific versions.

In the early 1980s in Northeast Ohio, you knew who Michael
Stanley was -- he was the hometown hero, Cleveland's
answer to Bruce (right or wrong, for better or worse).New Year's Eve and midsummer MSB concerts
were not only expected each year, they were embraced as events.But over time, it became apparent that the
national superstardom wasn't going to come for Stanley, and the question of why they never
made it big has dogged every member of the band since its dissolution, to the
point of thinly-veiled frustration from nearly everyone involved.

The more people I talked to for and about this project, the
more it evolved from a "what went wrong" piece into an exploration of
how the civic and musical identities of the region at the time related to Stanley's efforts, and how his actual successes reflected
back on to Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland's National Image

The river actually caught fire. It had been ablaze on several occasions, truth
be told.But the one that was the most
damning, the one that ignited the imaginations of the country was on June 22,
1969.It was that incident that sparked
a story in Time magazine a few weeks
later that described the Cuyahoga River as "chocolate-brown, oily,
bubbling with surface gases, it oozes rather than flows."A few years later in 1972, it inspired Randy
Newman to write "Burn On" with lyrics like "...the CuyahogaRiver / Goes smokin' through my dreams"
and an ending refrain of "Burn on, big river, burn on."Even into the '80s, the problem was dredged
up again; this time by R.E.M. in "Cuyahoga".But it wasn't just the river that caught
fire.Mayor Perk set his hair on fire at
a ribbon cutting ceremony.And his wife
turned down an invitation from first lady Pat Nixon because it was her bowling
night.Perk's successor, the "boy
wonder" mayor Dennis Kucinich, drove the city into bankruptcy.The national media seized on the blighted
civic image of the region.

Cleveland Radio Influence and Support of MSB

During this same period, Cleveland's music industry credibility was
nearly as untouchable as the city's civic image was irreparably damaged.Breaking acts like David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen,
the Buzzard juggernaut at 100.7 FM was a source of pride for the region.Emerging artists with Northeast
Ohio ties, like Joe Walsh and Eric Carmen, were breaking
nationally.Jeff Kinzbach, the
influential host of the Buzzard Morning Zoo for almost 20 years, described it
this way: "We didn't feel influential.We felt a responsibility to keep radio and music as pure as possible and
as free as possible.We did not want to
be just another formula radio station.We wanted to be the soundtrack to Northeast Ohio."And it was Kinzbach who led a vocal defense
against the national dragging of Cleveland
through the mud.

Kid Leo, the legendary DJ credited with breaking Springsteen
nationally, saw their power in this light: "Those who were at WMMS during
the period of the mid-'70s through the mid-'80s knew how influential we were
and looked at it as a 'public trust'.We
had to make sure that Cleveland's
image as the 'Rock 'n' Roll Capital' remained unchallenged.A major member of Cleveland's Rock 'n' Roll 'royal family' was
the Michael Stanley Band.They were THE
band that was nurtured and championed by WMMS.The radio station wasn't shy in promoting MSB to the national powers
that ruled the record industry in those days."

David Spero, Stanley's
first manager and a disc jockey at WMMS in the '70s, builds off that sentiment,
offering that through the power of Cleveland
radio, "We were breaking people like David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Humble
Pie, Yes, Lou Reed.People that weren't
getting played anywhere else in the country were coming to Cleveland and selling out [the 10,000-plus
seat] Public Hall, and they'd go other places and maybe do a twenty-five
hundred seater."

Thanks to support from the likes of KSHE in St.
Louis, pockets of MSB fans were cropping up around the U.S., but it was nothing compared to the
groundswell of support growing in Northeast Ohio
based on the backing of WMMS and on the strength of MSB's live shows.And that became the foundation for the love
affair between the city and the band.According
to Spero, there was a building process, but there was also a rabid fan base already
in place when they began.And that fan
base is where the band found their strength and where a city found something it
could believe in.

And what MSB provided was a sense of community.Stanley expressed
it like this:"It was a really bad
time in Cleveland
economically, you know, the river burning, you know, the whole 'mistake by the
lake' thing, the exodus of people.It
was a time of real poor self-image for the city, and I think that we were sort
of a rallying point.We were something
good that was happening, something that said, 'Hey, we're not all dickweeds
and, you know, out of work.' That coupled with 'MMS being, like I said, civic
minded and giving everybody a sense of community, I think that was a big
thing.I think it was... a lot of them were
living through us in a way, which is great.It was like, 'Gosh, if these guys can do it, they just live a mile down
the road from me, I can do something!'If we brought that to the party... our stint was worthwhile."

Spero views the fans' ability to relate to Stanley this way: "You always got the
feeling Bruce didn't pump his own gas. Nothing against that, that was just kind
of what it was.Bruce was bigger than
life.Still is.But that was not the case with Michael or Bob
[Seger] or [John] Mellencamp, any of those guys."

Even though Springsteen did incorporate identifiable
Midwestern topics like Youngstown and the steel
mills in his songwriting, Stanley's take on
regional subject matters seemed to resonate more closely with the Northeast Ohio fans.When thinking about all of the heartland rockers of the era, Stanley points out, "the Midwest
guys, I think we were all rather faceless.There wasn't a lot of 'image', per se.I've always said, I think a great deal of our success had to deal with
the fact that you could look at us on stage and imagine yourself up there.You look at Rod Stewart on stage, [and you
think] 'Wow, I don't know if I could wear those pants... and my hair would
never do that.'We were the guys next
door, and we just got luckier or worked harder or stuck at it or whatever, or
had more talent, or whatever.But it
wasn't that far removed from your everyday thing here.But if you saw us in the grocery store, we
were approachable, we weren't scary."

MSB is often compared to the Cleveland Browns of the mid-'80s.Victims of "The Drive" and "The
Fumble", the Browns came within one game of playing in the Super Bowl two
years in a row.But ask a die-hard
Browns fan if they stopped believing in or supporting the team because they
fell a little short, and they'll tell you they still supported the team and wished
them well and cheered them on.The Drive
for MSB was coming time and again so close to scoring the national break-out
hit, and the Fumble was the management and label mishandling.But the hometown fans have never abandoned
them.And they remain steadfast in their
support and love for the band that wrote the soundtrack to their lives.

MSB Attendance
Records Across the Region

Don Grierson, the head of A&R for EMI-America during the
late '70s and early '80s, was responsible for signing the Michael Stanley Band
to the label and had this to say about their reputation: "I knew of
Michael Stanley because of this Ohio
story way before I ever met them and signed them... You were in the business
you knew what was going on.There were
acts in certain pockets that were doing well and did or didn't break on a
national level."

Setting attendance and sellout records across the region, it
was that "Ohio
story" that propelled MSB to glory in their hometown.And, as a result of that superstardom, there
weren't a lot of bands that wanted to follow them on stage.Spero recalls, "I remember Billy Joel
opening for us once down in Akron
at the Akron Civic [Theatre] and trashing his dressing room being pissed off about,
like, 'Why am I going on before this guy? I've never even heard of him!'And I think realizing he was probably better
off going on in front of us in Akron.He'd just come out with Piano Man.Mellencamp
opened for Michael at the [Richfield]
Coliseum."

In the early '80s, MSB broke attendance records at the
18,700-seat BlossomMusicCenter
and the now long-gone 20,000-seat Coliseum at Richfield, then they would turn around and
promptly break their own records the following year.

Stanley
agrees, saying "I think it's that.I think it really is that... The fans gave us a sense of community
too... It's so cliché, but... the years of the three sellouts and the four
sellouts at Blossom, I mean, those were beyond comprehension."

Michael Stanley's
Enduring Local Popularity

Stanley
evaluated the stability of his musical career and situation annually.Of this, he says, "Every year on New
Year's Eve, I would ask my wife, 'So, what do you think?You wanna go another year?'You know, we weren't making any money.She'd say, 'Well, you know, things are
looking up.Let's try another year.'"

But it got to the point where it wasn't worth giving it
another year.In late 1986, Stanley officially broke
up the band.Of the decision, he says, "It
was totally an economic thing.My dad
came to me and said, 'Are you sure you wanna do this?'I said, 'No, I don't wanna do this, but I
have to.I can't pay everybody
anymore.And everybody has families, and
it's not fair to string them along.And
I'd rather go out kinda on top than, you know, end up playing the Holiday Inn.'"And they did go out on top: The band played twelve
straight sold-out "farewell" concerts at the 3,200-seat Front Row Theater
before moving on.

Reflecting on the fan reaction to the end of the band, Stanley observes that "there
were a lot of people, too, who, when it didn't happen completely for us, there
were a lot of people who were angry... And I think a lot of them were angry at
us.'We believed in you, just like the
Browns.We believed in you, we bought
the t-shirts... and you didn't win the big game.'And what can you say? We did what we could. But I can understand that, you know."It was obvious the fans' anger came out of
love.

Stanley describes MSB as "America's
most successful unsuccessful band, because who else that is not a household
name made like 13 albums as a band?Somebody liked us 'cause they kept giving us money to make albums, you
know."

In the years since, Stanley
has become ingrained in the landscape of the region by coming into the living
rooms and cars of his fans every day for the past 20 years.Immediately following the dissolution of the
band, Stanley landed a gig as co-host of the Cleveland edition of PM Magazine and a weekend show on
WMMS.Five years later, he took over the
afternoon drive slot on WNCX, where he remains today.He still performs, usually with his band the
Resonators, and sometimes with the Midlife Chryslers.And the fans remain.

Conclusion

Music is such a personal experience for both the artist and
the fan.In a way, Stanley's career is a perfect mix of what
every music fan secretly wants: the soundtrack to their lives, and that
personal relationship with the artist remaining in tact.The fans in Northeast Ohio know MSB was good
enough to have been huge on a national scale, but because of his largely local
celebrity, Stanley
is an accessible part of their lives in a very concrete way every day.

Ultimately, Stanley's
thoughts lead him to peace and this contentment: "I'm still doing this
because I love it.I'm certainly not
making a living at it... It's what I do.For better or worse, it's what I do. Hopefully the perseverance is respected."

For details on how
this paper was put together and Adam's impressions of the Pop Conference, check
out his blog, Random Thoughts Escaping.

Thank you to Janet
Macoska for opening her photo archives for this project.Prints and posters of her work are available
for purchase at her web site.

Adam
Besenyodi loves to talk pop culture. He is a former editor and writer
for PopMatters, a participant in the Pop Conference and a freelance
writer.

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